In the early 2000s when I started studying Yemen, no one in Turkey seemed to care about the country. Yet by 2010-11, Yemen was a hot topic. Neo-Ottomans loved Yemen, they sang songs about Yemen, they discovered the honey from Yemen, they established schools in Yemen.
One of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s senior advisers, Yasin Aktay, even found Kurdish Yemenis — who have oddly gone missing since his discovery — who were pro-Justice and Development Party (AKP). Hurriyet daily columnist Ertugrul Ozkok, along with others, joined in the cultural tours of Yemen guided by the Turkish ambassador at the time, investigated markets for the qat shrub and even wondered what kind of lingerie Yemeni women were wearing.
